Mick Dennis

The Voice of Football

Arsene Wenger fails to get Arsenal firing in Munich

ARSENE WENGER'S last words, before he sent his players out into the Allianz Arena last night, were about belief. But for long periods of the actual match, it looked as if Arsenal were riddled with doubt.

Wenger failed to find the winning formula against Bayern last night [GETTY]

The London club’s manager reported that his final, motivational message had been: “It is possible ... we can do something special.” Yet, as the world knew, there is a big difference between possible and probable and Wenger’s players were often understandably timorous.

Of course, given the deserved reputation and remarkable record of Bayern Munich, every visiting team needs to give them respect. And if the Gunners had been gung-ho, they would have been picked off easily.

But as Arsenal dropped off deep, defended cautiously and built their very occasional counter-attacks with patience rather than verve, one could not help but wonder whether at least some of them were hoping to avoid a thrashing rather than genuinely engaging in a winnable contest.

Until Lukas Podolski grabbed an unexpected goal - 56 minutes into the game and 60 seconds after Bastian Schweinsteiger had struck for the German team - Arsenal had barely threatened at all.

And so, as Wenger himself sat hunched on his seat in the technical area with that pinched face of his a picture of anxiety, he did not look like a man who believed - and the contrast with the insouciance of his opposite number could not have been more marked.

Josep “Pep” Guardiola stood for almost the entire match on the very front edge of his technical area but, other than a few very animated moments, he portrayed the air of someone very satisfied with the events unfolding in front of him.

He had both hands stuffed in the trouser pockets of his charcoal-grey suit. His short, navy blue overcoat was completely unbuttoned, as was his suit jacket. And under his black, v-neck jumper, his striped tie was only loosely knotted. He did not look indifferent of course, but he certainly appeared unconcerned.

Podolski's goal could not inspire an Arsenal comeback [GETTY]

Famously, he was the ball-boy who went on to play, captain and then coach Barcelona. He was so closely associated with the Catalan side that it is still a little odd to see him in the technical area of another team.

But he looked at home, nonetheless. And he and his team looked as polished as his bald head, which glinted under the floodlights.

Guardiola is 43. That means he is 19 years younger than Wenger, but he has amassed many more honours. He won a staggering 32 major titles as player and coach and, significantly, he won the Champions League as a player and twice as a manager.

Bob Paisley won its predecessor three times. Eighteen men, including Sir Alex Ferguson, Jose Mourinho, Brian Clough and Guardiola, won it twice.

Wenger hasn’t won it at all, and that grates. And, of course, he hasn’t won anything at all for quite a long time. Eight years, nine months and 19 days to be precise.

So you would have thought he would have been pedantically thorough in his preparations for this last-16 tie, yet there was an astounding mix-up for Arsenal. Arsenal included Ryo Miyaichi in the squad which travelled but discovered when they checked that the young Japanese player was inelligible.

That meant that they had one sub fewer than the permitted seven - and Japanese journalists who turned up in numbers hoping he might get on didn’t even get a chance to report on him warming up.

There will be questions asked about other Wenger selections too. Mesut Ozil, was withdrawn at half-time, and before that was an insipid imitation of the player who jump-started Arsenal’s season when he arrived late in the summer transfer window.

And where was Mathieu Flamini, the combative midfielder who might have knocked some of the smugness out of Bayern.

He might have made the night even more taxing as well for Norwegian referee Svein Oddvar Moen - who was under pressure and scrutiny because Wenger had ensured he would be. In the build up to last night’s game, the Arsenal manager speculated out loud that referees from “smaller football nations” are not much good at detecting the deceptions practised by seasoned players.

Moaning about Moen before the match had even started was a sly trick in itself. It worked to an extent, because the match official pointedly refused a penalty when Arjen Robben threw himself to the floor with his customary, dramatic enthusiasm.

But when the referee first got his yellow card out for a German it was for Podolski. And you couldn’t help thinking, all night, that Arsenal needed more than a sympathetic official to turn the possible into fact.